I have written about ancient places, warzones, political upheavals and far frontiers for the Wall Street Journal and Newsweek since the 1990s. That covers an area from the China-North Korea border to the Caucasus, to Iraq, Iran, Syria, Turkey to Eastern Europe. Submerging markets.

In Venezuela, The Show Trial Begins: A Personal Story

In Venezuela, the Maduro government is about to put a leading opposition politician on trial, or ‘show trial’ to be precise. Leopoldo Lopez has remained in prison since his arrest in February, spending almost all of it in total isolation. He turned himself in when the government accused him of incitement to violence. Since then significant figures close to Lopez have either been imprisoned, threatened, forced abroad or mysteriously killed in violent crimes. He had proved his political clout after bringing hundreds of thousands onto the streets in protest against the state’s corruption and authoritarianism, protests that continued into March and beyond. Some 40 people died during the unrest, and up to 5000 were wounded, mostly among demonstrators. At the time of Lopez’s arrest, though, clandestine snapshots showed that snipers from the government’s side had caused the first spate of deaths. Hardly, therefore, incited by him.

That’s the background. In recent days, one of his top aides, Isadora Zubillaga, an idealistic and articulate mother of two, has managed to flee to the US with her husband and kids. They are friends of mine from their previous time of residence in New York almost a decade ago. Isadora was always a bright, dynamic, energetic character, highly engaged in current events and issues everywhere, including Chavez’s nefarious power grabs in her homeland. It was something of a surprise, but not a huge one, when I heard she had embarked on a politically activist path. It was even less of a surprise when I heard they’d suddenly had to return stateside.

In the beginning, the young Zubillaga family had moved back home for the reasons that most people do, to bring children and grandparents together, to return to old friends and rituals and landscapes. But ultimately Fernando and Isadora had good reason to flee their country. Venezuela is ranked near the top in the world corruption index, and in soaring rates of violent crime, rates on a par with Chad and Haiti in government transparency and rule of law. Many of the Zubillagas’ personal friends have been robbed, not a few killed, this in a country teeming with police, armed forces personnel and militias. Unsurprisingly, most people believe that the very forces of law and order are responsible for a good deal of the crime.

In January, armed robbers entered the Zubillaga house in Caracas. They hit Fernando with their weapons, knocked him down and tied him up. They tied up Isadora and the two children and kicked their father Fernando repeatedly in front of them as they robbed the house. Oddly, while stealing the laptops they also took care to steal external memory drives. By their physical mannerisms Fernando instantly sensed they were trained law enforcement types, from the professional way they frisked him, the way they pointed their guns and other gestures. After the incident, police cars monitored their house and movements, for their own ‘protection’.

That was in January. A few weeks later, in February, the unrest broke out, initially at Universities as protest against the generalized conditions of lawlessness and insecurity after incidences of rape. Maduro’s government reacted brutally by pummeling and arresting students. Lopez called for peaceful demonstrations – which stayed largely peaceful until the sniper killings. When Lopez was incarcerated, he told his best friend to take care of his family. Some weeks later the friend was found hogtied and killed on a suburban hillside road, execution style, along with another friend with whom he’d been bicycling. The state, otherwise notoriously incompetent, on this occasion rather conveniently apprehended the (lone) perpetrator with surprising ease – apparently a drug addict who wanted to steal the bikes.

Finally, on June 26, Isadora was astonished to find that Maduro’s henchman and parliamentary enforcer, Diosdato Cabello, had mentioned her by name on his television talk show, accusingly referring to her as the person in charge of distributing clandestine funds to Lopez’s cadres. At that point, after enduring months, indeed years, of intimidation in one form or another, the family made a snap decision to leave the country post-haste. Being publicly identified as an enemy of the people in the kind of environment created by Chavez and his political progeny where rampant lawlessness prevails, in which state assassins and anonymous criminals operate interchangeably – the message was clear. Within a few days, early in the morning, the Zubillagas hopped on a plane to the US, leaving their lives and possessions behind them.

That night on his television show, Cabello referred to her again, “remember Isadora Zubillaga, I mentioned her last week, she left this morning at 7am on a flight to Atlanta in the US to meet up with her paymasters,,”.Then, when she went on a quick trip to Mexico to see friends, he mentioned her again, saying that she was going around Mexico City living it up as a political refugee. In short, the kind of targeted vengefulness meted out by the Maduro regime doesn’t stop at Venezuela’s borders. The message here too is clear, not just to Isadora but to everyone in Maduro’s virtual police state: you oppose him and you are not safe anywhere in the world. He will be watching.

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This is an anecdotal, inflammatory, biased and manipulative piece of non-news. The quality is so low, that it can only serve to preach to an undiscerning choir, characterized by vehemence and little regard for fact. Is this your niche? It is appalling.

In response to Yriart, I’d like to say the same of her comment. A large chunk of the population of Venezuela would not find anything surprising in what I wrote. Perhaps she would deem them undiscerning or biased. Perhaps the global organizations that rate Venezuela’s corruption and violence so high are undiscerning or biased too. As for the anecdotal part, the remarks by Cabello on television either happened or didn’t – a question of fact. Those alone constitute a scary violation of democratic norms, even if you expunged all else. But almost the entirety of my column merely recaps the historical record, therefore not a matter of bias. When the facts are inherently inflammatory, and the messenger gets blamed, the reader can easily judge who’s biased.

Yes, there is such a thing as an editorial. You have just encountered an illustration of the genre. That may be news to you but not to most others. Columnists do not abstain from having opinions. Nor do they shy from mixing fact with opinion. In fact, they’re supposed to. Perhaps that’s news to you. Your propensity to be disturbed by it would seem manipulative.

And if you “cover conflicts,” you would do your readership a service by seeking the perspective of each side, rather than fomenting a blind fest of free-wheeling partisanship. That is not ‘covering a conflict,’ it is participating in one. Perhaps that is part of your columnist’s genre. As I said, it is not journalistic coverage of a conflict.

This is getting circular, not to say tedious. Everyone, it seems, is a (literary) critic. The genre presupposes opinion. Your discomfort with that indicates false criteria for dismissing my column and intellectual dishonesty. Now you’re back to claims of unsupported innuendo, an accusation itself unsupported by my initial text, as I point out in my first response. There is nothing inherently disqualifying with breadth of argument if the topic requires breadth, nor is my argument gratuitously broad since I speak about specific instances which justify the scope of my argument. Nothing therein presented is false or unfactual. I do take a side. I do not do so arbitrarily. The material in the column sufficiently justifies the opinion of the column. You do not dispute the substance, merely my position. I don’t present both sides. I don’t see how I could honorably present the other side in the stories I’ve recounted since I’m talking about self-evident abuses. Impartiality in the face of manifest injustice would be the greater offense. Surely you have better things to do of a Friday evening.

My last pay check was $9500 working 12 hours a week online. My sisters friend has been averaging 15k for months now and she works about 20 hours a week. I can’t believe how easy it was once I tried it out. This is what I do… http://cli.gs/sg8nmwn

This is a very interesting article, this past week a former General(Hugo Carvajal) and former Head of Military intelligence to Hugo Chavez, was arrested in Aruba, he was on the Clinton List since 2008 for his close ties to Colombian Narcotraficking and responsible for the torture and death of two Colombian military men. The government response? to threaten Aruba with financial sactions for allowing the Dutch to arrest this druglord, in fact all flights from Vzla to Aruba have been suspended as of yesterday. In a country were somebody like Mr Lopez is arrested in a military prison for just being “political opposition” but somebody like Mr Carvajal, with his close involvement with Narcotrafics is defended by the government you can see that this article brings light to a very dark political situation in Vzla.

1. Mr. Carvajal is an accused in the penal system of the United States. What “somebody like Mr. Carvajal” is, or is not, is not determined, although you have established your own factual conclusion. The shady world of US intelligence assessments, and its press coverage, are not the best places from which to draw factual conclusions at all, much less in contravention of the presumption of innocence. 2. You suggest that the criminal charges in Venezuela against Mr. Lopez are for “being in the political opposition.” In fact, they are for inciting violence and conspiring to overthrow the government, among other charges. Perhaps you are unaware that after Hugo Chavez was overthrown for 2+ days in April of 2002, an entire class of political and legal opposition leaders, who perpetrated the coup, was amnestied and permitted to continue to be politically active in Venezuela. Despite this tremendous olive branch, they continued to make various plans for another coup. The June 2013 recording of Maria Corina Machado captures this in an example caught in express detail. The recording’s authenticity was not disputed by her, or by others in the opposition. Leopoldo Lopez was alleged to be among those leaders who called for street protests to grow unceasingly until they produced an extra-constitutional regime change, and to incite violence as part of this process. Whether or not Mr. Lopez is guilty of these offenses is also not yet determined in a court of law. But your statement of the nature of charges, or the reasons for his arrest, and the gross implications of that statement, is myopically subjective, biased, political, inflammatory and flatly incorrect.

Correction of last sentence (no way to edit?) But your statement of the nature of the charges, or the reasons for his arrest, which have broadly unfair political implications, are subjective, inflammatory and flatly incorrect

Monica Yriat, who are you really? why does this piece concerns you so much? is that your real name? Do you get paid to defend the regime? Don’t bother answering, it is a waste of my time to talk to somebody like you…

I am a comparative constitutional lawyer and international human rights specialist. I have followed Venezuelan constitutional legal history for 15 years, studying back to its colonial period, as well as working in many countries in the Americas and Europe. US media coverage of Venezuela is frequently highly ideological in way that is not self-examined, is one-sided, is sloppy with the facts, and is designed to inflame and persuade rather than to inform. There is nothing wrong with persuasion, if writing is clear in distinguishing opinion from allegation, and allegation from verifiable fact. Because people look to the media for information, the jumbling of these categories, in a manner designed to incite, is pernicious. This can be for a number of reasons, notably meddling in conflicts, rather than shedding light on them with care and honesty. The media exploits its reader in this way, rather than providing him or her with tools with which to make important judgments of their own. I dislike violence and upheaval, and believe that peaceful dialogue depends upon an impartial and, therefore, a hard working media.The quality of their work needs to be high: impartiality and a factual base that reveals its quality takes journalistic elbow grease, while repeating what one reads based on personal appeal, regardless of its probative value, as is so common, is easier. Readers’ approaches can mimic the media they are exposed to. Peaceful dialogue also requires careful attention to both sides of conflicts. Loud, messy band-wagons, such as articles in which the borders of opinion, fact, and allegation are jumbled in righteous drum beat are misleading and destructive. I do not work for any government. I am an independent lawyer, working, as stated, in the international law of human rights and comparative constitutional law, particularly in the Americas. From my perspective, the US mainstream media has been hysterical and frequently incompetent in its coverage of Venezuela. Writers have no handle on their ideologies, which lead the charge. Asking for coverage of multiple political sides and journalistic care with the calibre of information used, is asking for the impossible from these gut driven writers. Or perhaps reason and cold facts just doesn’t sell. The result is low quality copy, opacity, and the suppression of relevant information. If you think my point of view is worthless, I am sorry. I hope Venezuela can resolve its problems through speech and due process of law to the greatest degree possible, knowing that many, many Venezuelans support this kind of resolution, on both sides of the conflict; while loud mouthed to-hell-with-process types on both sides –in analogy to my criticisms of journalism– seek messy, forceful, one sided resolutions.

“It’s time for those us on the left to stop defending the undefendable, to denounce the repressive actions of a government shooting at it’s own citizens for demanding a true democracy and a better life. Socialism without democracy is simply a dictatorship” Very good quote. For all those “supporters” of regimes such as the Cuban, Venezuelan, North Korean, Russian etc, who live in the comfort of the good USA but applaud shady characters such as the Castro Brothers I have a suggestion. Move permanently to any of those countries, you would certainly enjoy the lack of personal freedoms you enjoy here. Specially the freedom of expression…

You lump a lot of different kinds of governments together. Venezuela has numerous democratic elements and an essentially democratic structure, although it is imperfectly and unjustly implemented, as in the United States, under different configurations. I suggest you read the Venezuelan constitution and observe the actions of its government using the constitution as a guide. This is reecommended for journalists also to enable them to “see” democracy where they can “see” none, becaause they are without the necessary knowledge base. The violence of Venezuelan government forces in this year’s social conflicts appears in many cases to be inexcusable, based on the available information. However, it also appears that the government is prosecuting its own methodically with respect to these events. It is hard to dispute that the Bolivarian armed forces are more restrained, lawful and better trained in their dealings with civilians than the armed forces that preceded the Chavez era who shot dead many hundreds of civilians with live ammunition in the context of the food and related riots of the late 1980′s and early 1990′s, leaving behind mass graves in a society where poverty stood at 70%. Venezuela’s armed forces have dramatically improved due to deliberate training in the rights of civilians in peacetime. The tragic loss of life that arose from the Guarimba’s can never be reversed, but there is some solace that the government has undertaken a sweeping, and serious campaign to prosecute those of its own forces responsible for an unlawful exercise of force, as well as prosecuting civilians responsible for violence. Failing to recognize and evaluate this reality in a balanced manner creates disinformation and deepens the polarization and lack of communication in good faith between the two sides in Venezuela, in a manner that is precisely destructive to the democracy you claim does not exist.

Also, I have been to Venezuela many times, and would happily live there. History is in motion, and it is fascinating despite frustrations and certain sad realities. There is also an extremely salubrious and happy social growth, as documented by various organizations of the UN, such as FAO, UNESCO, UNICEF and the 2013 e Social Panorama of Latin America of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) of the United Nations. These things escape the appreciation of the hand-wringing opposition who cannot bring themselves to recognize the social and physical welfare land-marks the country has to celebrate. If the opposition could broaden its circle of concern beyond its immediate frustrations to encompass the population as a whole, it might feel more sanguine and propose constructive policy initiatives, rather than obsessing on terminating the administration. The opposition’s good faith and constructive participation in Venezuela’s democracy is the key to its success. But, I believe, it cannot let go of its dark fixations, its polarization, and its utter incapacity to formulate and introduce constructive programs into government institutions where it has seats. It has never aspired to anything but terminating the peoples’ elected government and has eschewed sharing power, in my opinion. This has been destructive of democracy. There is still time: No solo Oponer, si no Proponer. No solo Protestar, si no Proponer. As with the journalists: quit yelling, roll up your sleeves, and work in good faith. Stop exploiting and deepening the polarization: make democracy work.

Gallup just released its “Positive Experience Index” or the “happiness poll” for 138 countries. Venezuela ranked 10th, while the USA ranked 24th. So, if this poll is significant, the assertion that US life is better, and the Commentator’s assertion that American leftists should move to Venezuela or be quiet about it, lose some steam. The Venezuelan opposition’s vision of a more “American” life for the upper middle class cannot be presumed to be beneficial for the country. The rejection of such a vision by democratic socialists cannot be presumed to be irrational. So Venezuela need not be ‘saved’ from its socialist voting block, Journalistic Crusaders of Anglophonia. “Report Well, don’t Crusade Poorly.”

Unfortunately I found your “Show-trial” piece to be so non- fact-intensive, while so inflammatory, that I was too annoyed to dissect it piece for piece. But I shall, since I owe it to you, having criticized it publicly. I don’t hope to alter your style, arrogance or methods of seeking reader appeal, unfortunately, although I wish I could, because I genuinely believe they are not constructive, and are indeed capable of being destructive.

1. A “ ‘show trial’ to be precise” – what does this mean? You are neither precise nor complete about the charges or the circumstances that gave rise to them. Incitement of violence is one of nine general charges with numerous subordinate charges, each of which relate to factual claims. You give the reader a fractional slice of information stuck in a bucket of meaningless innuendo. The “theater” theme is unsupported, undeveloped, unsubstantiated – a gratuitous attention grabber. Innuendo content of phrase: 100% 2. “Since then significant figures close to Lopez have either been imprisoned, threatened.”

Lopez and associates fomented a program of public protests called, in their own words, “La Salida,” translating essentiality into “The Exit Strategy,” which they themselves analogized publically to the protests in Egypt last year that produced an extra-constitutional regime change. The violent Guarimbas, asked for by associates such as Maria Corina Machado ,“every day,” were seen as part of the movement, which theyplaced on the public record.

This violated reasonable Venezuelan laws in contravention of varieties of treason.

So, your assertion that Lopez’s associates are being processed by the Venezuelan penal system or threatened with prosecution, or are fugitives of the law, does not amount to your grossly inflammatory statement that this is a “police state.” They are being prosecuted not persecuted – but you evade all the law and corresponding facts, and then claim it isn’t there.

Friend – in a Latin American police state, there are no trials, they just take you away, the judiciary and the legislative branches are dissolved. We Latin Americans are very familiar with the horrors of dictatorships, such as those supported by Washington in the Cold War. Don’t inflate a very serious term beyond recognition.

. If you seek extra-legal regime change, you can expect the law to come after you anywhere. This is obvious. You omit addressing this elephant in your factual room. It is THE issue that annoys the Venezuelan administration of justice.

You can cite infinitesimal bits of the factual picture slathered in gross amounts of innuendo – but you can’t turn Venezuela into a police state, representing those who seek to overthrow, it and then complain that they are prosecuted.

Those who are “forced to leave” are fugitives of the penal process – not of torture, not of murder, and not forced, they departed rather than answering criminal charges. Reiteration: in a police state, there would be no leaving, and no waiting for the wheels of justice to turn.

3. “At the time of Lopez’s arrest, though, clandestine snapshots showed that snipers from the government’s side had caused the first spate of deaths. Hardly, therefore, incited by him (Lopez).”

“Lopez called for peaceful demonstrations – which stayed largely peaceful until the sniper killings.”

As a “Columnist” I suppose you are the Oracle at Delphi, and something like the indicia of authenticity of such photographs is beneath you as an important facet of the discussion? When Marco Rubio used photographs of said snipers in the Senate he was immediately criticized with claims that the photographs were of routine security on public buildings occupying their daily stations, as exist in governments throughout the world, and there were no photographs of such snipers shooting civilians. There is controversy- yet, as an Oracle, you are too arrogant and irresponsible to deal with it. Rather you make it your dramatic cornerstone.

So you draw a historical line in the sand: Lopez incited no violence until the people were shot down by Government Snipers – A Clarion Call – BUT – did you travel with Mr. Lopez in all his public and private meetings? Do you actually know what he advocated to whom, when? Might it be possible that he advocated peaceful demonstrations in some forums and Guarimbas in others? You do not know this, please forgive me, but you are simply spinnin’ bull twankey. And it’s foundationless and irresponsible. You make it your center-piece and you have no idea whether it is accurate or not.

4. I am not going to dissect the case of your personal friend Isadora Zubillaga, other than to note that you take great care to place her motherhood in the forefront, omitting entirely the nature of her political activities and stated positions with respect to regime change, and the evidence regarding specific legal charges which the President of the National Assembly referred to, when addressing the nation. Again all emotive, the fleeing mother from the police state, no facts. The ‘atrocity’ of the Assembly’s President speaking of the political/financial offenses she is believed to have committed and her departure from the country leads you to conclude there is no democracy or a police state or what ever – a non sequitur that is not comprehensible. Our high public officials are permitted to speak of accused persons on the air, have we become a dictatorship?

Now, it’s tiresome a repetitive for me, to deconstruct the rest of your article in the same way. But it is all the same fluffy stuff. It would be innocuous if it wasn’t your penchant to inflame conflicts for your own creative purposes. Your other articles suggest you tend to believe the best way to quell a fire is to throw fuel on it. That leaves more dead, and cross generational grievances. I’m sure you may feel you are serving “the good,” but please re-think, take a very large dose of humility in the handling of information, and in the dissemination of it.

Ms. Yriart, It falls to one of the two of us to worry about the human rights victims you should be representing, as you claim, instead of pumping out this farrago of interminable propaganda. I certainly worry even if you don’t. But allow me to overlook it for now. A show trial is a trumped-up legal procedure with not justice but political ends as its purpose. Part of the ‘show’ element has to do with the trial’s polemical agenda – to serve as a persuasive example to the public. The public should know the fate of those who oppose the state. And the populist aerosol that gets unleashed around such rituals serves to rile up popular opinion against the accused, inevitably an enemy of the people and often, also, an agent of sabotage, usually foreign-sourced. Does this sound familiar? The Stalin-era precedents that defined the term demonstrated how legal protocols could be observed in pursuit of political persecution. Show trials and legalistic theater go together like a horse and carriage. Cuba anyone?

Nor does anyone believe your suggested scenario: if there’s prosecution, there can’t be persecution. Alas in Venezuela, as elsewhere in similar countries, plenty of extra-legal abuses occur far from the halls of justice as well as within them to silence dissidents, entire classes of them. The facts in themselves are inflammatory, not my interpretation. Venezuela ranks near the top of world tables in corruption and abuse of rule of law. You should be acutely self-conscious, not to say embarrassed, when you cite legitimizing legalisms where no law exists for most people, except the state. But then you’re the human-rights lawyer. I’m an innuendo-spinning, arrogant, inflammatory, term-inflator.

You might argue that unlike the Soviet system, Venezuela has an elected government therefore its laws are legitimate, indeed you imply the same. But it won’t wash. We have now seen enough elected semi-dictators around the world to know how the oppressive machinery works. Russia, Iran, Egypt, Georgia, former Ukraine, Turkey. You get the idea. In those places, brutal populists endure in power while traducing every other democratic institution outside of elections. Your cronies own the media? Check. Your cronies run much of the economy? Check. The judiciary, far from being independent, is at your beck and call? Check. No leader of the political opposition lives a free and unharrassed life? Check. Huge amounts of the state budget get lost in corruption? Check. As a matter of total coincidence, runaway crime seems recurrently to target a certain type of citizen, the type that you’ve identified as the enemy? Check. As the social fabric degenerates, it’s always the USA’s fault? Check.

In such places the people have no other voice than street demonstrations. The government has left them no other outlets. The government knows this. Therefore street demonstrations must be met with force, with state-sponsored counter-demonstrations, with brutal repression in various forms. You would wish that the reader not connect the dots, not see the repetitive pattern, from country to country and within each country. But it’s too late for that. Your disingenuousness convinces no one – outside of controlled media zones. When these patterns obtain, the authorities don’t get the benefit of the doubt anymore. The burden of disproof falls on them because every other illustrative category of governance demonstrates their bad faith. Therefore, yes, I believe Leopoldo Lopez. And Isadora Zubillaga. They don’t control the media, or the economy, or the manifold arms of law enforcement or the judiciary. Enough said. Please go and help, with what’s left of your unpolemicized time, those who suffer from human rights abuses and not those who perpetrate them.

You have raised too many issues for me to address, or “check,” as you say, but they are hasty and angry comparisons, and broad, conclusory generalizations that are not apt, prima facie. Sticking to your article, “Show trial,” what evidence is presented that the charges against Lopez are “trumped up” ? I understand that is what you meant, but you have no facts what so ever for the empty headline. I have already addressed the controversies surrounding photographs of snipers on public buildings. I do practice human rights in other subject areas, but I don’t like seeing democratic socialism that brings nutrition, health, education and housing to many, many millions destroyed and corrupted by rabid anti-socialists. In my opinion, the quality of democratic practice in Venezuela has deteriorated precisely because the opposition has never been a loyal opposition, despite being afforded a democratic system. It has been subversive, and this has weakened the quality of the democracy, as terrorism and subversion do in democracies, paradigmatically. No one you know may believe me, sir, we are in different circles. But from where I stand, you reside on Mars, scribbling a few notes on Venezuela from the distance, before staging a creative drama.

No need to worry about my human rights clients, or to present yourself as concerned for their suffering. I work in the analysis and development of law. That was honest to say, “I believe Leopoldo.” “and Isadoro.” I would not have jumped if you had stated that in the first place, rather than trumpeting “facts” of which you had no knowledge. Be honest. An orderly mind distinguishes meticulously between what it knows and what it does not know; and navigates the gray area just as precisely, conscious of what and why items are assigned degrees of conditional veracity. Nobody will believe YOU, if you offer such things as a crazy quilt combining Russia and Cuba and Venezuela — what, did you want to put in North Korea, too ? No one will believe the richly imagined, ideologically fueled, world within your head unless you apply the elemental first principle of an ordered mind: distinguish what you know for sure, what you don’t know, and the specific nature of the gray. Communicate that way. Otherwise, don’t mess with your readers.

The phenomenon that the author of this article appears to reveal in the collection of posts under his article” on Venezuela, is this: an author publishes, as fact, a version of events, as it is whispered into his ear by a criminal defendant or accused, without attribution. This, if it is indeed what occurred, as it appears to me, is a type of journalistic/legal act that cries out for nomenclature. If this is what occurred, as it seems strongly to this reader, may we call it, henceforth, a “Melek Maneuver” ? It has considerable legal and political significance, as a typye of action, if it occurred, and would be a methodology worth thinking about considerably. Defendants and accused persons should speak for themselves in the press and represent their own words, and not hide behind journalists. Journalists should not stick their necks out, but respect and report on the nature of facts, hearsay and other types of information.

The author has placed a link to the organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) by his story. Indeed that organization has submitted a report on Venezuela to the United Nations Human Rights Committee in advance of the Committee’s Pre-Sessional Review of Venezuela. Many of HRW’s criticisms of Venezuela are valid, in particular with respect to the independence of the judiciary. Others, such as holding accuseds “for 48 hours or more” before seeing a judge are important, but less compelling since in the history of Latin American penology, that that statistic, compared to Venezuela’s past and that of other countries, is a significant achievement, even if there is farther to go.

It is also vital to recognize that Venezuela aspires to have a high human rights record. This is core to its values. One need only research the web site of the national Attorney General Luisa Ortega Días to find that 197 investigations into unlawful use of public force in connection with the political protests of early 2014 are in course. Venezuela has a problem: it knows it, but it does not reflect a public or “systematic” policy. HRW makes an issue of the fact that the Attorney General did not answer its interrogatories, but HRW did not do its own basic research on material facts publicly available. She is busy. Respect and humanize your opponents.

All readers of the HWR chapter of Venezuela must do two things to gain perspective on Venezuela. One, look at the reports on other Latin American countries, such as Mexico or Honduras. Venezuela’s problems are substantially less severe. Second, look at the Report on the United States of America. Filled with abuses, HRW has provided a report with,

“revelations of unprecedented US government surveillance of electronic communications and transactions…[which] based on extensive interviews with journalists, lawyers, and senior US government officials, documents how government surveillance and secrecy are undermining press freedom, the public’s right to information, and the right to counsel, all human rights essential to a healthy democracy.” (“With Liberty to Monitor All, HRW 2014).

But, in reading this and a sordid array of more physically brutal human rights suffering in the USA, we don’t throw up our hands, conclude its “not a democracy!,” “it’s a police state!” and pursue its demise, unless we belong to the lunatic fringe. Because that is not the way to solve problems, that is the way to threaten a government and exacerbate its bad behavior. Venezuela can only get well when extremist elements of its opposition own up to their historic and current role in provoking the Venezuelan governments’ defensive overreaching, and begin to behave like a loyal opposition acting in good faith, as some of the opposition, such as Governor Henri Falcón, of Lara, have done. Concerned primarily with the needs of his constituents, ideological divides neither loom so large nor present obstacles for this Governor. Take note.

The Venezuelan establishment aspires to idealistic things. To socialism, mixed with capitalism, with plenary civil rights. But it is also born and conscious of history, and it will be damned before it goes down like Salvador Allende or Jacobo Árbenz. ALL countries place their sovereign survival first, which is why coups, attempted coups, and wishes for coups, or other affronts to sovereignty (e.g. 9/11) degrade the democratic practices of governments.

This is why, if the Venezuelan opposition truly loves democracy, it must practice it, regain the trust of the government that it has flagrantly squandered, contribute constructively to specific policy debates. The Opposition has a huge constituency, hundreds of news outlets, of its own, and of others, that will happily publish things other than “Chavez, you are going to find yourself hanging upside down like Mussoloni” (repeated innumerably, RCTV 2008). The opposition needs to compete politically on policy grounds, not by means of foolhardy Guarimbas and dreaming of regime change by popular power, which would tear the country in half, at who knows what cost. Opposition: do you love your country? Dou you love democracy? Practice it honestly and with humility.

The phenomenon that the author of this article appears to reveal in the collection of posts under his article” on Venezuela, is this: an author publishes, as fact, a version of events, as it is whispered into his ear by a criminal defendant or accused, without direct attribution. This, if it is indeed what occurred, as it appears to me, is a type of journalistic/legal act that cries out for nomenclature. If this is what occurred, as it seems strongly to this reader, may we call it, henceforth, a “Melik Maneuver” ? It has considerable legal and political significance, as a typye of action, if it occurred, and would be a methodology worth thinking about considerably. Defendants and accused persons should speak for themselves in the press and represent their own words, and not hide behind journalists. Journalists should not stick their necks out, but respect and report on the nature of facts, hearsay and other types of information.

The author has placed a link to the organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) by his story. Indeed that organization has submitted a report on Venezuela to the United Nations Human Rights Committee in advance of the Committee’s Pre-Sessional Review of Venezuela. Many of HRW’s criticisms of Venezuela are valid, in particular with respect to the independence of the judiciary. Others, such as holding accuseds “for 48 hours or more” before seeing a judge are important, but less compelling since in the history of Latin American penology, that that statistic, compared to Venezuela’s past and that of other countries, is a significant achievement, even if there is farther to go.

It is also vital to recognize that Venezuela aspires to have a high human rights record. This is core to its values. One need only research the web site of the national Attorney General Luisa Ortega Días to find that 197 investigations into unlawful use of public force in connection with the political protests of early 2014 are in course. Venezuela has a problem: it knows it, but it does not reflect a public or “systematic” policy. HRW makes an issue of the fact that the Attorney General did not answer its interrogatories, but HRW did not do its own basic research on material facts publicly available. She is busy. Respect and humanize your opponents.

All readers of the HWR chapter of Venezuela must do two things to gain perspective on Venezuela. One, look at the reports on other Latin American countries, such as Mexico or Honduras. Venezuela’s problems are substantially less severe. Second, look at the Report on the United States of America. Filled with abuses, HRW has provided a report with,

“revelations of unprecedented US government surveillance of electronic communications and transactions…[which] based on extensive interviews with journalists, lawyers, and senior US government officials, documents how government surveillance and secrecy are undermining press freedom, the public’s right to information, and the right to counsel, all human rights essential to a healthy democracy.” (“With Liberty to Monitor All, HRW 2014).

But, in reading this and a sordid array of more physically brutal human rights suffering in the USA, we don’t throw up our hands, conclude its “not a democracy!,” “it’s a police state!” and pursue its demise, unless we belong to the lunatic fringe. Because that is not the way to solve problems, that is the way to threaten a government and exacerbate its bad behavior. Venezuela can only get well when extremist elements of its opposition own up to their historic and current role in provoking the Venezuelan governments’ defensive overreaching, and begin to behave like a loyal opposition acting in good faith, as some of the opposition, such as Governor Henri Falcón, of Lara, have done. Concerned primarily with the needs of his constituents, ideological divides neither loom so large nor present obstacles for this Governor. Take note.

The Venezuelan establishment aspires to idealistic things. To socialism, mixed with capitalism, with plenary civil rights. But it is also born and conscious of history, and it will be damned before it goes down like Salvador Allende or Jacobo Árbenz. ALL countries place their sovereign survival first, which is why coups, attempted coups, and wishes for coups, or other affronts to sovereignty (e.g. 9/11) degrade the democratic practices of governments.

This is why, if the Venezuelan opposition truly loves democracy, it must practice it, regain the trust of the government that it has flagrantly squandered, contribute constructively to specific policy debates. The Opposition has a huge constituency, hundreds of news outlets, of its own, and of others, that will happily publish things other than “Chavez, you are going to find yourself hanging upside down like Mussoloni” (repeated innumerably, RCTV 2008). The opposition needs to compete politically on policy grounds, not by means of foolhardy Guarimbas and dreaming of regime change by popular power, which would tear the country in half, at who knows what cost. Opposition: do you love your country? Dou you love democracy? Practice it honestly and with humility.

The phenomenon that the author of this article appears to reveal in the collection of posts under his article” on Venezuela, is this: an author publishes, as fact, a version of events, as it is whispered into his ear by a criminal defendant or accused, without attribution. This, if it is indeed what occurred, as it appears to me, is a type of journalistic/legal act that cries out for nomenclature. If this is what occurred, as it seems strongly to this reader, may we call it, henceforth, a “Melek Maneuver” ? It has considerable legal and political significance, as a typye of action, if it occurred, and would be a methodology worth thinking about considerably. Defendants and accused persons should speak for themselves in the press and represent their own words, and not hide behind journalists. Journalists should not stick their necks out, but respect and report on the nature of facts, hearsay and other types of information.

The author has placed a link to the organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) by his story. Indeed that organization has submitted a report on Venezuela to the United Nations Human Rights Committee in advance of the Committee’s Pre-Sessional Review of Venezuela. Many of HRW’s criticisms of Venezuela are valid, in particular with respect to the independence of the judiciary. Others, such as holding accuseds “for 48 hours or more” before seeing a judge are important, but less compelling since in the history of Latin American penology, that that statistic, compared to Venezuela’s past and that of other countries, is a significant achievement, even if there is farther to go.

It is also vital to recognize that Venezuela aspires to have a high human rights record. This is core to its values. One need only research the web site of the national Attorney General Luisa Ortega Días to find that 197 investigations into unlawful use of public force in connection with the political protests of early 2014 are in course. Venezuela has a problem: it knows it, but it does not reflect a public or “systematic” policy. HRW makes an issue of the fact that the Attorney General did not answer its interrogatories, but HRW did not do its own basic research on material facts publicly available. She is busy. Respect and humanize your opponents.

All readers of the HWR chapter of Venezuela must do two things to gain perspective on Venezuela. One, look at the reports on other Latin American countries, such as Mexico or Honduras. Venezuela’s problems are substantially less severe. Second, look at the Report on the United States of America. Filled with abuses, HRW has provided a report with,

“revelations of unprecedented US government surveillance of electronic communications and transactions…[which] based on extensive interviews with journalists, lawyers, and senior US government officials, documents how government surveillance and secrecy are undermining press freedom, the public’s right to information, and the right to counsel, all human rights essential to a healthy democracy.” (“With Liberty to Monitor All, HRW 2014).

But, in reading this and a sordid array of more physically brutal human rights suffering in the USA, we don’t throw up our hands, conclude its “not a democracy!,” “it’s a police state!” and pursue its demise, unless we belong to the lunatic fringe. Because that is not the way to solve problems, that is the way to threaten a government and exacerbate its bad behavior. Venezuela can only get well when extremist elements of its opposition own up to their historic and current role in provoking the Venezuelan governments’ defensive overreaching, and begin to behave like a loyal opposition acting in good faith, as some of the opposition, such as Governor Henri Falcón, of Lara, have done. Concerned primarily with the needs of his constituents, ideological divides neither loom so large nor present obstacles for this Governor. Take note.

The Venezuelan establishment aspires to idealistic things. To socialism, mixed with capitalism, with plenary civil rights. But it is also born and conscious of history, and it will be damned before it goes down like Salvador Allende or Jacobo Árbenz. ALL countries place their sovereign survival first, which is why coups, attempted coups, and wishes for coups, or other affronts to sovereignty (e.g. 9/11) degrade the democratic practices of governments.

This is why, if the Venezuelan opposition truly loves democracy, it must practice it, regain the trust of the government that it has flagrantly squandered, contribute constructively to specific policy debates. The Opposition has a huge constituency, hundreds of news outlets, of its own, and of others, that will happily publish things other than “Chavez, you are going to find yourself hanging upside down like Mussoloni” (repeated innumerably, RCTV 2008). The opposition needs to compete politically on policy grounds, not by means of foolhardy Guarimbas and dreaming of regime change by popular power, which would tear the country in half, at who knows what cost. Opposition: do you love your country? Dou you love democracy? Practice it honestly and with humility.